The Gentlemen Hecklers Present: The Room

“Oh, hai Mark!” Vancouver’s masters of movie-riffing, The Gentlemen Hecklers, are taking on their biggest challenge yet: Tommy Wiseau‘s epic, pop-culture masterpiece, THE ROOM. This legendary stinker is easily the Rio Theatre audiences’ all-time, hands-down forever favourite “so bad, it’s good” movie, our collective guiltiest cinematic pleasure, the bestest “best-worst” film of all time – … Read more

Purple Rain

Dearly beloved We are gathered here today To get through this thing called “life” Electric word, life It means forever and that’s a mighty long time But I’m here to tell you There’s something else The afterworld… The Rio Theatre’s patented Friday Late Night Movie series continues on February 27 with a screening of The … Read more

Pan’s Labyrinth

The Rio Theatre‘s series of Y2K classics continues on August 19 with a screening of Guillermo del Toro‘s phantasmagorical PAN’S LABYRINTH. Set just after the Spanish Civil War in 1944, del Toro’s protagonist is bookish young Ofelia, whose forthcoming adventure recalls a more hauntind, daunting Alice in her Wonderland. As Ofelia’s mother lays pregnant and … Read more

Midnight Special

Actor Michael Shannon reteams with writer/director Jeff Nichols (TAKE SHELTER) in MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, a sci-fi drama about a father and his eight-year-old son who go on the lam, on the run from the government and a certain doomsday cult, upon discovering that the young boy possesses mysterious powers… Also starring Kirsten Dunst, Joel Edgerton, Sam … Read more

Live Script Reading & Screening of THE ROOM with Greg Sestero!

On May 27th, Rio Theatre is tackling something weirdly special for the 13 year anniversary of THE ROOM! A full-length live script reading of actor/director/producer/screenwriter Tommy Wiseau’s very first draft of THE ROOM, with dialogue and plot events that’re very different from the polished version that wound up on-screen. Greg Sestero will be here in … Read more

Drive

“If I drive for you, you get your money. You tell me where we start, where we’re going, where we’re going afterwards. I give you five minutes when we get there. Anything happens in that five minutes and I’m yours. No matter what. Anything a minute on either side of that and you’re on your … Read more

The Revenant

There is a reason Leonardo DiCaprio (finally!) nabbed himself an Oscar for his turn as a 19th century frontiersman fighting for survival in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (BIRDMAN) epic THE REVENANT – because he deserved it. Inspired by the true story of a fur trader named Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) who fought off a bear, was left … Read more

Only Yesterday (Omohide poro poro)

From the creators of SPIRITED AWAY, MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO and THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA comes a long-awaited masterpiece never before released in North America, Isao Takahata’s ONLY YESTERDAY. As part of the film’s 25th Anniversary celebrations, the film has been digitally restored and remastered by Studio Ghibli, one of the world’s foremost animation … Read more

Hail, Caesar!

Lights. Camera. Abduction! Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest colourful caper, HAIL, CAESAR!, is a totally entertaining love letter to Hollywood’s post-war Golden era that follows a single day in the life of studio fixer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), tasked wiith cleaning up and solving problems for all the industry’s heavyweights. Things get dicey when studio … Read more

Embrace of the Serpent

Director Ciro Guerra’s masterful and highly acclaimed (it is the first Colombian film to be nominated for a Best Foreign Picture Oscar), “El Abrazo De La Serpiente” has been described as both “blisteringly poetic” and a “soulful, strange, and rare discovery.” Visually stunning and thematically rich, the film is inspired by the actual diaries of … Read more